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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Shower

Our wedding shower was last weekend and it was just so great. It wasn't a surprise because the womenfolk in my family are terrible liars. For the bridal shower of one aunt, they waited until all the guests were in the house before coming up with an excuse to get her to come over. The best they could do? A friend of someone was over there selling blouses and she should come over and see if she wanted to buy some.

I mean, honestly people. It takes me 2 hours to get from my house to my parents' house and I wasn't going to make the trip for whatever tragic reason they came up with this time. I mean, what if someone really was selling blouses and it cost me a 4-hour round trip on the subway to find out? That's some quality knitting time right there, but still.

Maybe it's presumptuous to assume that there's going to be a shower, but I know that my aunts would insist on having an opportunity to watch us unwrap housewares, while embarssing the hell out of us, if at all possible, so there's no point in pretending.

Speaking of the rock and the hard place--the same rules of ettiquette that has me answering our friends' questions by saying that we're registered here and there, but they're not obligated to get us anything let alone something from the registry (which is true), also has me checking the registry daily to make sure that there's still enough variety of available gifts in different price ranges.

So I shouldn't want or expect gifts, but I also have to stay on top of people giving us gifts. Plus, I was worried while we were registering that people would think badly of us for registering for 1 or 2 pricey items (even though I'd be totally happy with just scoring the discount they give you when you buy up stuff to close out your registry).

Seriously? I had opened 2 or 3 packages at the shower before it sank in that we were going to get to take all this stuff home and it was OK to get excited about it.

Double seriously? It would have been enough for people to just come to the wedding and have a good time and keep the complaining to a minimum.

Triple seriously? We're really psyched and grateful for all the gifts and really will think of the givers when we use them (except for the bath towels, because it's kinda creepy to think of anyone when drying off your nethers).

Quadruple seriously? That waffle iron will be getting some use this weekend if HA knows what's good for him.

Now, the shower was co-ed at my request. I had hoped that the presence of uncles and he-cousins sitting out in the sunroom watching sports would keep the girly-ness and ritual humilation of the bride to a minimum. I don't know if it was that, or my repeated death threats aimed at my mother, but there was no bow hat (i.e. a paper plate with gift bows stuck to it that I would then be expected to place on my head for a photo op) and no one tried to wrap me in a toilet paper wedding dress.

I was, however, presented with a Victoria's Secret box. (Background: the women in my family insist that the mother-of-the-bride must buy her daughter a penoir set to wear on the wedding night/for the morning after breakfast in bed photo. Which, what??? and ewww! and no, really, just, don't.)

So I smiled and laughed and figured it couldn't possibly be too bad. Hell, I know how to return merchandise as well as the next gal. And my mom had promised. My aunts couldn't possibly have peer pressured her into breaking that promise, right? They do have me outnumbered, but still...right?

I braced myself and opened the box...

which contained 2 dozen pairs of stripey socks.

They got me. They got me good. They got me so good that later on, I decided to make an impromptu bow hat. A pillbox bow hat, if you will.